28 May
2016
28 May
'16
9:52 a.m.
I think the difference between the Apple-1 and the early Cray computers is that the Crays were a controlled item. You couldn't buy or ship one without US government approval, so there is a paper trail for them. The Apple-1 was a hobbyist/consumer computer so once sold, if a record of that was even kept, they disappeared into a black hole until they emerged.
When I originally bought my set of Crays they made me sign the "acknowledgement that it is a munition" document. It came from a government contractor and the space it was in was TS. When I sold one of them to someone in Sweeden or Switzerland, it took me a little bit of work to make sure I was actually allowed to export the thing. Fun times!